Amazon HQ2 short list has just one West Coast city

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FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2017, file photo, an Amazon employee gives her dog a biscuit as the pair head into a company building, where dogs are welcome, in Seattle. Amazon announced Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018, that it has narrowed its hunt for a second headquarters to 20 locations, concentrated among cities in the U.S. East and Midwest. Toronto made the list as well, keeping the companys international options open. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017, file photo, a clerk reaches to a shelf to pick an item for a customer order at the Amazon Prime warehouse, in New York. Amazon announced Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018, that it has narrowed down its potential site for a second headquarters in North America to 20 metropolitan areas, mainly on the East Coast. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

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FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, file photo, Zavian Tate, a student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, pushes a large Amazon Dash button, in Birmingham, Ala. The buttons are part of the city's campaign to lure Amazon's second headquarters to Birmingham. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

FILE - This Sept. 6, 2012, file photo shows the Amazon logo in Santa Monica, Calif. Amazon announced Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018, that it has narrowed down its potential site for a second headquarters in North America to 20 metropolitan areas, mainly on the East Coast. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, file photo, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, right, speaks while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stands behind him during an announcement in Newark, N.J. New Jersey lawmakers have signed off on $5 billion in tax breaks to Amazon in an effort to convince the company that Newark would be the best location for the company's planned second headquarters. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

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SEATTLE — Amazon’s second corporate headquarters is coming soon to a city not near you.

The Bay Area struck out Thursday when Seattle-based Amazon revealed the names of the 20 metropolitan regions that are now finalists for the e-commerce kingpin’s second corporate headquarters. The company has said it will spend $5 billion on a campus that would employ up to 50,000 people.

San Francisco, Oakland, Fremont, Richmond and Concord had put in a joint bid to offer Amazon locations in each of those cities, while San Jose had put in a separate bid of its own.

The San Francisco-Oakland-East Bay coalition’s bid included locations such as the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, a Coliseum City location and sites in downtown Oakland, Fremont’s Warm Springs Innovation District, the Hunter’s Point Shipyard in San Francisco and the Hilltop Mall and Richmond Field Station in Richmond.

San Jose’s effort to lure Amazon included sites in downtown and South and North San Jose.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said Thursday that he wasn’t surprised Amazon passed on the chance to set up its second headquarters in the South Bay because of “the company’s strongly expressed desire for public subsidies and our unwillingness to offer any corporate giveaways.”

The mayor noted that San Jose has gained considerable interest in corporate expansions from other tech companies, large and small.

“Without subsidies, San Jose has managed to attract extraordinary investments in recent years ranging from tech titans like Google, Microsoft and Apple, to fast-growing pioneers like Zoom and Xactly,” Liccardo said.

Daniel Ives, chief strategy officer and head of technology research at GBH Insights, said that despite the Bay Area being home to many of the biggest tech and internet-based companies in the world, the region was going to find it difficult to woo Amazon and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos.

“Amazon is a core Seattle brand,” Ives said. “And in its in DNA, a second headquarters was not going to be in the valley and San Francisco as it would be a major cultural shift that was counter to what Bezos has built.”

When asked about why the Bay Area didn’t make Amazon’s final cut, a company spokesman said Amazon “didn’t have anything to share beyond the press release” that it put out early Thursday morning.

Los Angeles was the only California city that Amazon selected to move through to the next stage of the decision process. Gov. Jerry Brown has offered tax breaks and incentives to Amazon if it chooses a California location for what it calls its “HQ2” facility, including up to $200 million over a five-year period as part of the California Competes Tax Credit program, a streamlined permitting process and up to $100 million in employment training funds over 10 years.

Tim Bajarin, president of tech consultancy Creative Strategies, said that in spite of what many in the Bay Area see as the region’s benefits — access to strong educational facilities and investment shops in addition to its tech-industry bloodline — geography probably played a big role in Amazon’s finalists decision.

“The Bay Area is too close to (Amazon’s) current HQ, and the new area needed to be either in the Midwest or on the East Coast coast to help with growing U.S. logistics,” Bajarin said. “I never thought our area was in the running because of the need for a new center that helped them be more responsive to their American market.”

Ives said that based on the list of finalists, he believes the winner will be an East Coast city that is home to a strong base of intellectual property and technology companies, colleges in the surrounding area, and is also a location that helps serve Amazon’s political interests.

Ives guessed the most likely winners as Raleigh, due to its growing population and the area’s Research Triangle; Atlanta, which is also seeing a population boom and has a rising presence in technology; and Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia because of those locations’ proximity to many technology and educational facilities, as well as the political nature of the area.

“(Washington or Northern Virginia) would help Amazon’s political capital going forward within the Beltway, which is becoming more of an issue as seen lately with (President Donald) Trump squarely focused on the growing Amazon consumer empire.”

Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, reacted to Amazon’s decision by saying, “It’s not a happy day,” but admitting that he wasn’t really surprised Amazon doesn’t want to set up a huge new headquarters in the area.

“It starts with the fact that Amazon is located in a place similar to the Bay Area,” Wunderman said. “Very likely, Amazon is searching for a place that’s more of a different location. We don’t offer them a new, West Coast presence.”

But just because Amazon won’t bring HQ2 to the Bay Area, that doesn’t mean the company is absent from the greater Silicon Valley region. Amazon has several of its businesses headquartered here, including its Amazon Web Services, Alexa Internet and Twitch, its live-streaming video game platform.

And according to the Bay Area Council, in 2017, Amazon signed leases for 644,000 square feet of business space in the Bay Area for approximately 3,900 employees, and the company leases a total of 3 million square feet of office space in the region.

Rex Crum is the senior web editor for the business section for The Mercury News and Bay Area News Group. He also writes about business and technology for the publications' print and web editions, and has covered business and technology for nearly two decades. A native of Seattle, he remains a diehard Seahawks and Mariners fan and is imparting his fandom to his Oakland-native wife and two young daughters.

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